


Devil In Me

by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2019 reuploads, Blackmail, Don't copy to another site, Episode: s05e16 Dark Side of the Moon, Extortion, M/M, Trans Sam Winchester, bi sam winchester, semi abandoned, very unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue
Summary: Lucifer wants to make Sam trust him. When Dean dies to a stray bullet meant for Sam, Lucifer finds his opening.
Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Castle of Glass

**Author's Note:**

> S7+ Lucifer is basically Lucifer without a filter or patience + Hades sass from the Disney movie and I stand by that.
> 
> Chapter title a song by Linkin Park. Fic title a song by Halsey.
> 
> This was called Personal Jesus based on the Depeche Mode song before, but I decided to rename it.

When Dean goes down, takes the bullet for Sam-

Sam doesn't know what to do. If Dean is dead... If Michael has him-

There's a ringing sound, the flutter of wings. Roy and Walt explode into blood and viscera, the hair standing on the nape of Sam's neck long before the Archangel saw fit to make himself known.

There's a moment, one moment, where Sam thinks it's all over. Dean is gone. He's been found. He doesn't have anything to fight with.

So Sam just takes a breath and pretends this isn't real, even if it will only postpone a fight he still doesn't know how to win...

"I can help with that." Lucifer says. Too quiet when he walks out from the doorway, like always, even if Sam can sense him long before that, and it's just Sam's damnable luck that Dean's death makes enough metaphysical noise that Lucifer found a way to get his foot in the door.

Sam jerks upright and backs away.

Lucifer still likes the sound of his own voice, though, and fills the silence enough for both of them.

"I can bring him back for you, Sammy. I would do it, for you. All you have to do is ask-"

Lucifer holds up his hands while he keeps coming closer. Pretends at nonthreatening, even though they both know he's anything but.

"No." Sam can't find his voice save for that. There's been too many nights with the Devil breathing down his neck, eyeing his throat, touching where he shouldn't, even if it's just a dream and as unreal and unraveling as much as Sam feels right now-

"Suit yourself."

The thing about Lucifer is that he is very good at pretending patience.

Sam pretends he doesn't understand, but he does. Sam knows him too well, because he's seen that monster and knows he isn't lying when he says they are two puzzle pieces made to fit, two made to be one, made for each other in all the cosmic ways that count. Sam can feel he was made for him.

It doesn't mean he wants anything to do with him. He can't make him love him. He can't make Sam want him. He can't make Sam pretend that he asked or wanted it to be this way, even if Sam can't help the way he wants to get closer, wants to jump into this monster's arms and rest, when the Devil would just as easily rip everything Sam has ever worked for or loved to pieces and call it love.

Lucifer thrives on making people doubt. On making them wait.

On giving them enough rope to hang themselves, and pretend he's not the hangman.

There's cracks, sometimes, in the facade. Where he wants too much and asks too quickly and the lust and the need to touch is just a little too hard to keep from peeking through-

And Sam sees it. Sam can see the Devil for all he truly is, and despite his desperation, despite the fact he does not want to belong to this monster, some part of him rejoices in it, and that keeps him beyond afraid.

It's more than life and death and apocalypse. It's Sam keeping hold of himself, or giving everything over.

And Sam can't let him take that, even if he keeps having to give this monster a taste just to stop his life from spiraling out of control and to keep the other monsters from getting ahold of Dean and if Sam has to hold on to false kindness and fake mercies than he'll do what he has to do no matter how much he can't truly cave.

Which is why Sam stops, and adds, "Wait."

Even if it goes against his better judgement.

Even when he knows better.

Lucifer stops, too still, eyes flickering back, lips curled up in what isn't a smile but Sam can see the truth, the glib want there, the knowledge that Sam is about to bite on some level if Lucifer just doesn't ask the wrong thing.

Because, damn him and everything else, Sam can't watch his brother be dead. Not again.

He can't do this without him. He can't endure without him.

He doesn't know how to fight knowing he has no power and no leverage and nothing but himself to give, when it's all this monster wants, and Sam can't say yes but he can't keep his no, either.

It's extortion where the Devil pretends there's charity to be had.

It's the same way Lucifer pretends he's presenting Sam with choices, when really, underneath, it's just a threat. Just a promise that things are only going to get worse from here, unless Sam welcomes him home with open arms and plays the game the way the Devil wants to play it.

It's, _you'll say yes eventually, and you don't get to hurt yourself and take yourself out of the home game, not when you belong to me._

It's the same trick as Lucifer saying he would never lie, would never trick, when he wore Jess to begin with and trailed a hand down Sam's throat, pressed their lips together and pretended that Sam signed up for it because he could feel it was different, but the dream itself felt so distant that Sam couldn't collect his bearings enough to care.

That's what counts as a choice, to him. Getting what he wants and pretending Sam asked for it, no matter what he can make Sam feel, or the way he wields loneliness and exhaustion and all the broken ways Sam doesn't belong anywhere else against him. The way Dean's distance and lack of faith and Castiel's assurance that they're probably all doomed but might as well fight, anyway.

Sam doesn't know how to save anyone, when it comes down to the wire.

He's not sure he ever knew how, when death follows everywhere he goes and takes everyone from him too soon.

And it doesn't matter if Lucifer is gentle, or patient, or abstains from threatening Sam and his brother like the other angels do- even if he's not adverse to everyone else paying the price, letting Hellhounds or demons do his dirty work and pretend it's all part of the game.

Sam may always say no, might not ever give ground. But it doesn't change that Lucifer is still winning. That he's still getting everything he wants and is finding new and improved ways to make Sam feel like a cornered animal, like he'll wring some of what he wants out of Sam even if the yes never crosses his lips.

Like he pretends it's a mercy, letting Sam give up the wheel and hold on to the destruction the Devil will bring, because it means no real choices at all, so at least Sam doesn't feel responsible for the things he's been made complicit in, when it comes to all the suffering he's been forced to witness, forced to live with.

It's like Sam's a trophy Lucifer is going to win, and all it will take is letting everything else dash Sam to pieces so Lucifer can say he glued him back together again out of the goodness of his nonexistent heart. Like Sam is a trophy that Lucifer can make love him, whether Sam wants to or not. Whether Sam agrees, or caves. He just wants what he wants, and thinks Sam will fall in line regardless.

(What is worse... What is worse is if Sam is wrong, and Lucifer is being genuine. If he doesn't know how coercive he is. But Sam knows better. Sam has seen monsters like him and loved them, when he looked into Ruby's eyes, too.)

Lucifer rounds and steps closer, bringing Sam back into orbit.

"Have something you need to get off your chest?"

"Can you bring him back?" Sam keeps his eyes down. Can't look Lucifer in the eye, or see the triumph there, however subdued, however hidden under layers of false sympathy.

"I could. If you ask nicely. It won't be easy, getting him away from Michael, after all-"

"Please."

Lucifer smiles, then. Runs his hand through his hair, takes another two steps forward, and sighs when Sam flinches back more, clutching Dean's lifeless hand like a lifeline and the angel blade in the other.

They both know it's a useless sort of posturing, but it's the only thing making Sam feel like he has control, and if there's anything Sam has learned, Lucifer likes giving him that illusion, if only because it helps trap Sam more in his net before Sam realizes how much he's well and truly made.

"Of course." Lucifer waves a finger lazily in a circle, "But there is a little matter of quid pro quo-"

"I'm not saying yes."

**So much for giving me everything.**

_Oh, don't be like that. We are going to need to set boundaries, if we're going to do this right. Isn't that what you told me is the foundation for a healthy relationship?_

**Screw you.**

Lucifer clicks his tongue. "I'm not asking for the big yes, Sammy. We can work our way up to that. I don't want to pressure you, after all-"

Sam lets out a small laugh, joyless and bit unhinged.

Lucifer's tone rumbles, "-And you'll come to me, eventually. We both know it's not quite time yet- you're not ready. And I'm willing to wait for you. I've waited so long already-"

_And I know, when the time comes, you'll ask to be mine. So no hard feelings, I promise._

"That being said, I don't feel like taking on my brother for free. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily give you anything you ask for, provided it doesn't come between us. But it's so rare that I get to see you in the flesh, alone, without your brother going all overprotective and making you feel all conflicted, so in this case, I want some insurance. You know, just to make sure we can really talk, Sammy, get to know each other, so you can let your hair down and stop jumping every time I come calling-"

Sam flinches.

Lucifer sighs.

"Tell me, Sammy. What can I do to prove myself to you? To erase all those little doubts and make you see I'm in your corner?" Lucifer asks, all soft. He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe, and doesn't look at Dean's body once. Just keeps his eyes on Sam- always on Sam, unless he's leveling a threat and looking at Dean instead, but it's like Sam is the only thing that can draw the true gaze of the deep thing below the flesh out, because the wanting to be had there is too hungry to ignore.

_I only want you to be happy, you know. I could make you so happy, if you would just let me-_

Lucifer waits.

Sam forgets how to speak, until his pride and self-righteous rage at being treated like this, as if he asked for this-

"Don't ask me for anything in return, and I might just be inclined to believe you." Sam dares snarl back. He might have nothing left but he'll be damned if he let's Lucifer act like he owns him already-

And Sam shouldn't be thinking like that. Lucifer will never own him. Sam is never going to give him what he wants.

Even if Lucifer has been amazing at erasing what little choices Sam thought he had already.


	2. Supermassive Black Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title a song by Muse.

"Ah, Sam. That is exactly your problem." Lucifer shakes his head, so slight, holding out a hand Sam shrinks away from. "You don't think you deserve anything at all. And I need to correct that assumption." Then there's a hand cupping Sam's chin, and the Devil is close enough that inhaling tastes like every spare bit of icy cold crawling down Sam's throat, and Sam isn't sure if Lucifer is going to kiss him or just barely touch. A thumb rubs over Sam's lip.

Then Lucifer backs away a little, rocking on his heels, hands in his pockets, expression shifting so he's not a kid in a candy store trying to sneak things out from under a watchful eye.

It's always a punch to the gut. How good it feels, how much Sam wants to lean into the feeling and yet how much Sam doesn't want it and all that will follow, how much ground Lucifer keeps gaining while only tearing the slightest boundaries down, enough plausible deniability to pretend it's not a violation.

"But I'll do this, all for you. Bring your brother back unscathed. I just have one favor to ask, Sammy- and I won't be asking you to say yes. You can put that out of your head."

"Then what do you want-" Sam growls, eyes not leaving the gaze trained on him.

"Just for you to allow me some generosity. Give me a chance, next time we cross paths and you need to ask for me to help fix something. All I want is some alone time, you and me. No threats. No expectations. Would that be so hard?"

Sam wants to say no.

But there's still the fact the Devil could rescind the offer, bring Dean back less than in one piece, might hold him hostage once he gets his claws in, there's too many variables-

"And if I agree to these terms?"

"Then next time I find you, I'll give you what you need, show just how much I appreciate you. No tricks, no misunderstandings that make your heart jump out your chest. And your little friends, all the people you hold on to, they can stay out of it, safe and cozy wherever they decide to hole up while we get to know each other. Let me make this better, Sam. Let me make this right. You've been running yourself ragged here, and you deserve some time to take the edge off."

Sam shivers, skin crawling.

It's not the first time his body is currency, but he's not sure that's all that's on the line, here, not with the way Lucifer keeps eyeing him.

But Dean is the priority. If he says yes to Michael, if Michael hurts him, if he stays dead-

That's just not an option on the table.

"Deal." Sam manages, hand sliding over his mouth, trying to be a shield from the way Lucifer just keeps watching him.

Lucifer smiles then- and it looks real, this time, looks less than the fake, false sympathy Sam is used to- and that scares him more.

Because he knows Lucifer will come to collect. That he can pretend that this is a seduction, or well-meaning, or whatever Lucifer tells himself when he's haunting Sam's sleepless nights, but it doesn't erase what he really is.

And that they both know it, somewhere, and that's why Lucifer relishes Sam's fear as much as he does whatever keeps drawing them together, can't quite hide the truth even while he plays at being kind.

He wants Sam to choose him, yeah. But he wants Sam to himself, by any means possible, and just because he's pretending at letting Sam come to him, it's like a cat staking out a mouse and pretending it is an even trade.

"How do I know you and Michael didn't arrange this?" Sam dares challenge, and that wipes the indulgent smile off Lucifer's face real fast.

**How do I know this isn't an elaborate ploy you both set up together?**

Lucifer does bare his teeth then, but he keeps his posture casual. His voice is husky and muffled when it rumbles from his chest, and Sam can see lightning and hurt and a void in the Devil's eyes, beckoning him like the sea pulling him down under the water.

"If my brother and I could agree on anything, we wouldn't be in this position. I'm sure you can relate."

The horrible empathy is back, worse than the sympathetic glances the Devil usually defaults to.

And that makes something claw at Sam's throat, makes it tight and hurt and the sense-memory of a fist to his jaw feels too close, of Dean calling him a monster, of saying **_it's worse, it's what you are-_**

It's the only barb Sam has managed to hurt the Devil with, and somehow he's still managed to make him feel guilty for it, even after everything he's already pulled.

Sam looks at his feet.

Somehow, Lucifer has dove in close again, snuck through when Sam was distracted by the memory of all the things pulling him and Dean apart, even now.

Sam goes back to trying to pretend Lucifer doesn't exist, only he can't because Lucifer is touching his face again, where the bruise used to be. The memory of fighting Dean still stings, guilt branded there, even though that was the one time Sam threw the first punch, and that just makes Sam want to lash out if it will do anything at all, to stop this riptide from sucking him in and shattering him with all the ways he and the Devil are alike and all the ways they are not.

**You've cornered us before. You've hurt my friends, killed people I loved-**

_Yes. But I did not orchestrate your tragedies. I gave you a choice. You chose not to come to me, without any violence, without any fanfare, back in that town. And they chose, long before you did, to try and interfere with my plans. The two are not related- your compliance is the only thing that makes me crave mercy. Otherwise, I am merely protecting my investment. I know you don't want people to die, Sam. But if they have to die so we can live, then it is an easy choice, for me._

**We had no choice other than to try and stop you. You used Azazel and Lilith and what they did so my life played out to bring me to you. You don't get to pretend that you didn't contribute to any of this.**

_But that's what I'm trying to tell you, Sammy. You might not be on board. You might balk at the things I will do to keep you close, to keep you safe, to keep us safe. And I have no qualms about getting my hands dirty- history wishes to paint me a monster, and while I am not, I will be whatever I have to be to end this and bring peace. But you don't have to keep fighting me, either, not when you don't have anything that will work and when all it does is hurt you, by proxy or otherwise. Take yourself off the chessboard, if it's what you need. But my fate was written long ago, and unless Michael sees sense, I will not let it go. My brother is trying to kill me. My father wanted me dead. You are all I have left. The only remnants of a love that they do not have for me any longer, but more than that, because you are better than them, Samuel. You are angry, and lost, yes, but you are gentle and kind when by all accounts, I don't know how you do it, in this world that has so often turned it's back on you. Is it really a stretch to think I don't want to preserve you? To let you take what is yours, without you having to suffer the price any more? To give you respite, to give you love, when so often it has been barred from us, when so often our family has tried to lock us away and pretend it's better we never existed at all, when all we did was love them, and do everything we could to protect them, even when they don't see how wrong they are?_

Sam doesn't have an answer to that, mostly because Dean is growing colder and stiffer in his hand by the second and because the angel blade is digging too close to Lucifer's chest on autopilot and because there are hands so close to wrapping around his torso, eyes inches from his, lips ghosting his face.

That, and because Sam hadn't asked for any of this. And because Lucifer was wrong, but he'd never change, because he'd been kept downstairs too long to think his solutions were anything other than necessary. Arguing with someone you can't reason with doesn't get you anywhere- Sam knows it already, knows it all too well.

_You killed Lilith to try and fix things, Sam. I know your intentions were pure. And even if you were trying to stop me- are still trying to stop me- you can't help it. You didn't know better, what I was, really. You just wanted to take back control and believe you could save who you could. You believed all the stories and wanted to keep the status quo, even though it has only ever hurt you. But I will answer that prayer, Sam. I am your salvation. I may not be what you wanted to come out of that box, but I will fix things, just like you wanted. I will make things right. Just give me a chance. Give us some time. Let me prove my devotion._

**If you wanted to give me what I wanted, you wouldn't start the end of the world, or kill so many people, or lie-**

_I did not lie, Samuel. I just assumed you understood, but I can see I was too hasty when I first sought you out. And if it is between my destruction and yours, Sam, then I will choose us every time._ _Â It is time someone looked out for you, instead of you looking out for everyone else._

**Maybe I don't want you in my corner-**

"I don't have to indulge your need for self-destruction, Sammy. Other people might want you to cast yourself to pieces in their name, but I will not stand for it. Just as I will not stand for your need to sacrifice yourself without regard for your welfare."

Sam juts his chin out, the fight back in him because that was the trickiest wording he's tried yet.

"And yet you want me to sacrifice myself to you."

"If that's the only way you'll see my attempts at protection, then I will indulge your fantasies, if only to make it easier on you, with all those lies you tell yourself. But you are not my sacrifice, Sam. You are my other half. You are all that really matters. And I want to make you see it, feel it, live it- to remember what is like to have someone looking out for you."

"My brother-"

"Does a piss poor job more often than not, for all his trying. He's too selfish to save you, Sam. And only my selfishness is enough to counteract it, I think."

Lucifer's tone remains light, in all the ways the glare of his eyes and intensity of his presence isn't.

Sam swallows.

Lucifer backs off quick, gives him air even when he hadn't realized how cornered he's been this whole time as background noise.

"Look, I don't blame you being cautious, Sammy. For having doubts. They are healthy, in your line of work, and I not one to bash free thinking. But I wish you had more faith in me. I am not my brother. And I'm going to treat you right. All you have to do is let go, let yourself breathe. But hey," Lucifer claps his hands together, so loud in the vacuum they'd found themselves in that Sam jumps. "Time is a-wastin'. So I'll fix this mess for you. And I'll see you around, kiddo. I know I will."

_Soon. Real soon._

Lucifer disappears in a blink. Flying off to get Dean, in a way Dean staunchly would not approve of.

And Sam sinks to the floor next to his brother's not-yet-revived body, wondering how he's suddenly found himself in deeper than he ever thought he could be without any recourse on how to stop drowning in all that he doesn't know how to fight.

Lucifer is wrong. But he is very hard to win an argument with.


	3. roman empires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a wippy draft because my computer is still broken and typing is hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title a song by missio
> 
> this was supposed to be extortion and noncon but then it turned into something about love and self esteem and codependency and the wanting trust/love/to be seen balanced by the sheer terror of knowing that something that sees and wants and knows you also would destroy you with it because it isn't enough for you to love them back idk

Sam wants to let go.

Sam wants to be loved without judgment, without conditions.

Intimacy is a weapon, and part of wanting to be loved is knowing exactly how this is going to go wrong.

\--

Lucifer wants submission and supplication not just because he wants love and control, but because part of him loves the broken parts of Sam, that if Sam let himself give in to, the parts of Sam that believed himself to be broken, would only lead to one thing.

Lucifer needs Sam to be broken because that was the only way Sam would accept love from someone like him.

Sam could love the parts of Lucifer that weren't cruel.

But the cruelty necessitated that Sam feel like no one else could ever like or understand him.

And that's the kind of love Sam won't accept, even if he believes it.

Because believing it means that Sam considers himself unworthy or unable to be loved by anyone or anything else, or to trust or love himself beyond that.

\--

"It's okay."

Sam wishes it was.

But it's not, precisely because wanting to be loved so badly by something so incredibly inhuman and consuming and honest, but not, by wanting to be loved in that way, means that Sam thinks he is unworthy and cannot love himself because the only one who'd give it to him is the Devil.

And Sam could forgive Lucifer for that, if Lucifer wasn't so hellbent on destroying everyone and enjoying it and wanting for Sam to cast away all the parts of himself he holds on to for dear life, the parts he can forgive, the part that loves something greater than himself alone, if Lucifer wanting to be loved and to give back love didn't mean destruction not of who Sam is but everyone else, too.

Sam could forgive the cruelty and manipulations if it wasn't entirely intentional. If it wasn't the means by which Lucifer would turn this into a victory, a conquest, and not quite love at all.

If it didn't mean Sam would disappear in wanting the love of someone else because he believed it was all he was worth.

That he couldn't forge a love for himself outside that because there was just something inside him that made the only person who could love him the devil incarnate, intentionally, however much Lucifer claims he isn't.

No evil thinks itself evil and downplays its evil when it acknowledges it at all, because the evil that is chosen is a response to a grievance and needing to be in control.

And love, at the end of the day, isn't control.

Even if everyone in Sam's life seems to think so.


End file.
